Astrid spent last night at the nest box but left at 3:30 AM when Ares arrived with her breakfast. I don’t think that she took it though. It was very dark and I could barely make it out on our PTZ camera, but it looked like they tried to mate on the State Building before 5 AM, which may be a record early time for that kind of thing. He tried to give her another food offering at 6:00 upon her return to the box, but she still wouldn’t take it. Things seemed quiet in the canyon for the first half of the morning, but that tranquility was disrupted when an intruder came blasting through. There was pandemonium for a while. Astrid seemed particularly put out this time. Following some chasing Ares assumed his usual lookout position on the top corner of the State Building and surprisingly, there he received a hazing from the other bird. Following that, our pair again took the upper hand and the intruder wasn’t seen again for the rest of the day. In the late morning a long chatter alarm call given by Ares was probably in response to some other species of raptor (not a Peregrine) migrating over the Downtown area. Thankfully, the afteroon was much less contentious. Astrid was seen drinking water from puddles on the Hotel ledge no less than three times and there were as many as six mating seen and/or heard between afternoon and dusk. Ares brought some dinner (it was an unrecognizable hunk) to Astrid in the early evening. This she accepted; she flew over to Hotel ledge to devour it. We expect the second egg of the season to be laid sometime in the early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!
Astrid must be having pregnancy cravings for something other than the same old food offerings – wonder what she found -maybe that is why they are being pursued – egg to follow.